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Go BibleFor the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ and the furtherance of His Kingdom. |
GoBibleCreatorGoBibleCreator is a tool for converting ThML and OSIS Bible texts into Go Bible Java applications that can be loaded onto phones. GoBibleCreator is a Java application and requires a Java Runtime Environment. Download GoBibleCreatorSimply click on the link below and decompress the zip file. Here is a description of the files in GoBibleCreator 2.1.5.zip:
Before Running GoBibleCreatorBefore GoBibleCreator can be used you will need a ThML file or an OSIS file in UTF-8 format. A sample ThML file for the book of Hebrews is provided. Other ThML files can be downloaded from CCEL. Running GoBibleCreatorGoBibleCreator is run with the following command line from the directory containing the GoBibleCreator.jar file:
GoBibleCreator loads the entire XML file into memory and therefore requires the -Xmx128m attribute to increase the total memory available to 128MB. Multiple collections files can be created at once by specifying additional source and collection files in the command line as indicated by the square bracket above. Here is the command line to be typed in to produce a collection from the Hebrews.thml file:
After running the previous line new JAD and JAR files will appear in the Collections directory ready to be installed onto a phone. The Collections FileThe Collections file contains the configuration of the collections. The file describes each collection, which books it contains, and which chapters from each book. The Collections file must be in UTF-8 character encoding so that all character sets are supported. A simple Collections file is shown below:
The first line indicates that a new collection named 'Hebrews' is required. This name willl determine the JAD and JAR file names that are produced as well as the application name that appears on the phone. Below the Collection property are the books that will be contained within the collection. In this example, only the book of Hebrews will be added to the collection. It may be worthwhile to look at the Collections.txt files that come with the existing Go Bible collections as it may provide you with a head start in setting up multiple collections. Splitting BooksSome phones have JAR limits that prevent some of the larger books from fitting on the phone. Nokia Series 40 MIDP 1.0 phones for example have a 64KB JAR limit. This would prevent some books such as Psalms from loading onto the phone. GoBibleCreator allows books to split up by indicating which chapters will appear in each collection. The following example creates two collections, the first contains the first 5 chapters of Hebrews and the second contains the remaining 6 chapters:
The commas (,) are mandatory and the first number indicates the first chapter to include and the second number indicates the last chapter to include. Note that we have changed the collection name to indicate to the user which chapters are in each collection, however, any collection name can be used. The Info PropertyThe Go Bible application includes an About screen which provides information to the user about the Go Bible application. The optional Info property in the Collections.txt file can be used to append additional information about the particular translation, for example:
The contents of the Info property will now appear in the About screen. Supporting MIDP 1.0By default GoBibleCreator produces MIDP 2.0 compatible JAD and JAR files. These files will not run on MIDP 1.0 devices. To support MIDP 1.0 devices the MIDP property needs to be defined in the Collections.txt file as follows:
Note that specifying MIDP 1.0 will result in only MIDP 1.0 files being produced. These files contain less functionality than the MIDP 2.0 files such as no support for fullscreen viewing or SMS. Language CodesSince Go Bible supports multiple translations it is possible that a user may wish to have both the KJV and Chinese translations on their phone at the same time. If the collection names are the same for both translations then the phone won't allow both to be stored simultaneously. A simple solution to this problem is to use the Language-Code property which will be appended to the name of every collection, for example:
Every collection will now have 'En' appended to its name. GoBibleCreator also appends 'Go Bible' to every collection name by default so the generated application names for the above example will be 'Hebrews 1-5 En Go Bible' and 'Hebrews 6-13 En Go Bible'. It should also be noted that GoBibleCreator strips spaces from the generated JAD and JAR file names as these can cause problems on some phones. The generated file name is the collection name plus the language code. The following files would be generated for the above example:
Right Aligned TextSome languages such as Arabic and Hebrews are read from right to left this also requires text to be aligned to the right rather than the left. Go Bible by default aligns text to the left. The alignment can be changed using the Align property:
The text will now appear aligned to the right of the screen and the verse numbers will also start on the right of the screen. Using Non-English Book NamesMost ThML files and OSIS files use English book names even though the text is in the native language. GoBibleCreator supports changing the book names using the Book-Name-Map property. A Book-Name-Map property is listed for every book whose English name must be mapped to another name, for example:
The first string "Hebrews" is the name of the book as it appears in the XML file while the second string "The Book of Hebrews" is what will appear to the user. Note: The Book-Name-Map property does not change the usage of book names in the rest of the Collections.txt file, they must still use the XML book names. Creating Files for WAP DownloadGo Bible is most commonly downloaded from PC to phone. However, Java applications can also be downloaded via a WAP browser. This method is less commonly used since it is expensive and sometimes difficult. To ease the process of creating files for WAP download the Wap-site property can be used in the Collections.txt file. If the Wap-site property is declared then a separate 'wap' subdirectory is generated containing JAD and JAR files ready for uploading to a WAP site. In addition, a Welcome.html file is generated containing links to all of the JAD files. The Wap-site property contains the full URL to the directory that will contain the JAD files. This URL is used within the Welcome.html file as well as for setting the MIDlet-Jar-URL property of the JAD file. WAP site example:
HelpIf you need any help with using GoBibleCreator don't hesitate to email me at jolon@onthenet.com.au. |